Unless residents or property owners mount a substantial protest against the so-called
Third Street Annexation
, the community of about 340 residents will become part of
Lake Elsinore
, possibly as early as Aug. 1.

City officials viewed the annexation as logical because the community is nearly encircled by the 41-square-mile city of 53,000. Services such as police, fire, water, sewer and public education are overlapping.

Annexing the area into Lake Elsinore would allow residents and landowners there to have a voice at City Hall a couple of miles away rather than having to travel to Riverside, the county seat.

"I think it's a positive thing, and the concerns of the citizens out there were properly addressed," said Gary Washburn, who owns property in the annexation area.

Washburn, a Lake Elsinore councilman in the 1990s, attended Thursday's hearing at the
Eastern Municipal Water District
's boardroom in Perris, but did not address the commission.

"It's always in my mind been part of Lake Elsinore," he said of the Third Street corridor.

Only one person other than city officials addressed the commission. Mary Venerable, president of the local chapter of the
NAACP
, spoke in her capacity as a property owner with pasture land along the Third Street corridor.

Third Street is a dirt road that, despite its treacherous condition, is heavily traveled because it provides access from Dexter Avenue to many of the community's side streets.

"Over the years, we have continued (to get by) with dirt roads, flooding and horrific traffic because it's right off Highway 74," Venerable said.

She said, however, that she would not oppose the annexation as long as the city upholds its promise to let residents keep their animals and let property owners continue to use septic systems.

"My concern is that I would be forced to connect my property to a sewer line, and that is quite expensive," Venerable said.

City officials assured the commission that current property uses are "grandfathered in," meaning people there can live as they have been.

As part of the annexation process, the city approved a
zoning map
for the 320 acres that would allow for more commercial and higher-density residential development in some parts.

The altered zoning would not kick in until building permits were obtained, officials said.

Also, for one section with a high concentration of domesticated animals, the city agreed to a low-density residential designation that allows livestock.

"I think there's some advantages to it (the annexation), but the big thing is they made changes so that we could still have horses there," Bernard Rockwood said.

Rockwood, a resident of Welch Drive in the annexation area, arrived late to the commission meeting and missed the hearing.

He said that in the past, when the city had sought to annex the community, residents feared they would be forced to abandon their rural lifestyle and their animals.

"That's why it's been 20 years that we've been fighting this thing," Rockwood said. "We told them no every time. Now, they've got things changed around. At this point, the city's been quite helpful when we've had questions."

Before making their decision, the
commissioners
engaged in little discussion and did not go into whether the community of Warm Springs on the north side of Highway 74 should also be considered for annexation.

A state law that went into effect this year requires boundary-setting agencies considering annexations to also look at adding neighboring unincorporated communities classified as economically disadvantaged.

The commission's staff, however, recommended against that consideration because it did not regard Warm Springs as a neighboring community; it is separated by the sprawling commercial district along Highway 74.